Easy Homemade Playdough

I love doing fun things with my kids, but I don’t do stuff as often as I’d like because of time and the mess. The Lord knows I have enough messes to clean up as it is without purposefully adding to it!

I look on Pinterest and see all those cute craft projects and ideas for kids. I pin that glitter project that’s momentarily caught my eye and for a fleeting moment, I contemplate actually attempting it. And then the realist in me takes over and I know it ain’t gonna happen.

How many of you do the same? Come on, admit it. We’d all love to be those fantastic crafty moms but the simple truth is most of are just too tired with too many other things to do.

If that’s you – or even if you are an amazing crafty mom (my hat’s off to you!) – then this post is for you.

This is such an easy recipe for making homemade playdough. I found this recipe online about 2 years ago and since then, made a couple modifications.

This easy homemade playdough recipe uses common kitchen ingredients, is cheaper than store-bought playdough, and takes less than 10 minutes to make. I made 6 batches in 30 minutes. Pretty awesome, huh? And in my experience, it doesn’t crumble and make as big of a mess as the stuff from the store. It’s also hardier and lasts longer – I have a batch from well over a year ago that’s still going strong! And of course, it’s non-toxic?

(I get so many comments and questions that I can’t answer all of them. I recommend checking out the link above for frequently-asked-questions. And if you still need help, you can email me. Thanks for reading!)

What you’ll need to make Homemade Playdough:

1 cup flour

1 cup water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar (I highly recommend buying a large container; it’s much cheaper than the tiny ones from the grocery store!)

This easy homemade playdough recipe makes a large amount, probably equal to 2-3 containers from the store. So you might want to halve it or make it in 2 saucepans. I made 6 batches of the full recipe because with 3 kids wanting to play with it, it’s good to have more to go around. More = less fighting.

In a 2 quart saucepan, add 1 cup of flour, 2 teaspoons of cream of tarter, and 1/3 cup of salt. Yup, that’s 1/3 cup of salt. Don’t make my mistake and misread it to mean teaspoon. I could blame my toddler because he was hanging on my leg. Yeah that’s it. I ended up with a very sticky ball. Apparently the salt keeps it from sticking and also helps preserve it, so you definitely want that in there.

Add 1 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Turn your burner on medium/low and stir. It will be a little lumpy. That’s okay.

Keep stirring until it starts getting a little solid. If there are still a few lumps, that’s ok – you can work them out later. If your stove is already hot, this may only take 20-30 seconds, but it may take 2-3 minutes if it’s still heating up.

Once it reaches that point, add the food coloring right away. It will be much easier to mix up if you do it now. I showed the regular food coloring you can get from the grocery store in the ingredients picture (because it’s easier to identify) but I prefer to use AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste Food Color – this food coloring is amazing – a little goes a long way and you get such rich colors easily. I rave about this every chance I get.

Stir in your food coloring – my kids wanted orange here, not that can you exactly tell the color from the picture below:

Ahh..there it is!

Now the dough will start getting thicker and a little lumpy. Just keep stirring.

Once the dough starts gathering together around the spoon you know it’s done. This may be 20 seconds or 2 minutes from the time you put the food coloring in, again depending on how hot your stove is. My first batch was longer, but once I whipped together more batches, it literally only took a few seconds and a total of 2 minutes on the stove from start to finish.

Remove your homemade playdough from the saucepan and put it on some waxed paper or a plate to cool.

Once it’s cooled, I like to knead the playdough for a minute or two to get out any lumps and to get it to a better consistency. Then again it could just be my excuse to squish it myself before handing it over to the kids…it is kind of fun.

Doesn’t it look fun?

Now don’t you want to make some easy homemade playdough and squish it?!

For storage, I have the kids put their homemade playdough in a ziploc bag. It seems to be hardier than the store bought stuff and doesn’t dry out as easily. If it does become dry, you can work a few drops of water into it.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Hi Im in Uk and would love to make this for my 4yr old but we dont use cups as a measuring guide could u please tell me how many grams or ounces are needed instead of cups as cups over here range from an epresso size to a jumbo coffee cup and everything in between

Your current report has verified helpful to me personally. It’s extremely educational and you’re simply obviously quite knowledgeable of this type. You have got opened my own face to different views on this kind of subject matter with intriquing, notable and reliable written content.

I used to make this for my daughters many years ago and had lost the recipe. I have been looking for it for a while now and I think this one is it! Thanks so much for posting it. I have four grandchildren now and would love to have it on hand for them.

I tried this recipe without the cream of tartar (cause it’s hard to find in Holland) and it turned out just fine. I love these things where you can easily trie to do something new in only a few minutes. I used food coloring from Dr. Oetker, the most common baking brand in the stores, but I had to use the whole bottle to get the dough pink (not even red). So I think next time I’ll use a better product instead. That being said, the recipe is perfect! Can’t wait to make some more for my friends’ kids!

This is so fun to make! I made pink & light blue batches for my kids, trying to make red and blue. Now I’ve made green, blue, red, and yellow! 16oz peanut butter jars are the perfect size t hold an entire batch! I made the blue and yellow tonight, so I can’t wait for my daughter to see them in the morning!

Today, while I was at work, my sister stole my apple ipad and tested to see if
it can survive a 40 foot drop, just so she
can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views.
I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!

Hello Erika! I know im about a year late but i just wanted to ask…kan we just add the koolaid packets instead of the food coloring to THIS recipe???? i love how yours LOOK like PlayDoh! My daughter is excited to make it! We are gonna try YOUR recipe first then the KoolAid later. WE have made the basic one (NON cooked) lots of times but this looks like it will be much better! thanks so much for the info! AND TO ALL WHO COMMENTED!! I LEARNED A FEW THINGS TODAY!

We made this dough yesterday, and a ton of it. It is very pretty and vivid with the gel colors. One thing that irked me is that it is pretty drying and does leave that crusty film on our hands. In the beginning, I took some of my batches off as soon as they began to cling into a ball and they didn’t have as much of a problem with the film on the hands and were much more malleable . The rest of the batches I kept on the heat until they were a pretty firm ball and I guess they dried out a bit too much because they leave a bad film. Not sure if anyone else had this problem but I guess these need to stay pretty moist and I may be tempted to try adding a little more water or oil to them to see if that fixes the film problem.

I appreciate you taking the time and effort to
put this information together. I once again find myself spending a significant amount
of time both reading and posting comments. But so what, it was still worthwhile!

For those who don’t like the cost of crèam of tarter… I’ve had the same small container for 3 yrs. I use it one time a year to make Christmas sugar cookies.
I used to make this playdoh when my daughter was little. It stayed soft a lot longer than the store bought kind.
Invest in the cream of tarter. It’s worth it.

[…] My daughter loved it and gave me just a few minutes to click. She decided I was done and took off with the dough . I have to say that kneading the dough while it was warm was completely relaxing and watching the dough get its color was fun. I am sure you can understand how excited I am about the whole process . I looked at a few videos online and a few links too. Seems like a standard recipe to make play dough. Recipe from here. […]